Norway 2010

From ICCC

People

• Adam Holland

• Tom Haywood

• Will Eldred

Trip Report

12th July The trip began with a cunning plan for Adam and Will to stay at Toms and get a lift to the airport the next morning, which immediately fell at the first hurdle as Will had to go home again to get his passport which he forgot, and then get a bus back to Toms at 3 the next morning.

13th July After getting the paddle bag on the plane for free (which contained the roof bars and weighed almost as much as a boat) and stocking up on booze in the duty free where the man working there suggested that we needed 18 bottles (we went for six but he was probably right) we arrived in Oslo. We arrived in Sjoa that evening for the first day of the river festival and immediately signed up for as many free courses as possible.

14th July Due his shoulder still being a bit sore from the alps Tom decided not to paddle so Will and Adam had a couple of runs down the playrun section of the Sjoa for a warm up. Then we set off to find costumes for the infamous Pimps and Hoes party. Our search for costumes brought us to the ‘Old Man Shop’ which turned out to be a barn full of old clothes and junk. After a couple of hours of rummaging and bartering we got three costumes for a bargain £10. After a suitable amount of drinking everyone put on (and painted on) their costumes and headed out to get the minibuses to shuttle everyone to the bar. However on arrival at the road the minibuses were nowhere to be seen, so the descision was made for everyone to hitch, and by hitch I mean block the road. Soon a campervan stopped and everyone piled in or decided to try a spot of campervan surfing. Some power line dodging later and the campervan stopped at what appeared to be a house party. None of us are quite sure but we think they were some Norwegian kayakers pre-drinking before the bar. After spectating/breaking up a fight over an ill advised inquiry as to which Lord of the Rings character a rather short chap was everyone walked the rest of the way to the bar……

15th July While signing up for all the courses seemed like a good idea at the time, Adam and Tom got up, feeling somewhat the worse for wear, for the Leadership course. After getting off the river at lunch time they began to wonder where Will was and after a quick call went to pick him up from Vagamo (about 2 hours away) still dressed in his Hoes costume from the night before.

16th July Water levels were pretty high so we decided to do some big volume paddling on the Lagen Hunderfoss section. Having underestimated how far away it was we arrived after several hours driving. Once Adam had walked the shuttle (Norwegians don’t seem to pick up hitchers very often) we put on to the river at about 500 cumecs. We found several nice, big but friendly rapids before the final rapid with a huge curling wave/hole which you could sneak past at these levels, however if you didn’t mind the beating of a lifetime it would be an awesome surf. After getting back to camp we did a quick blast down the playrun back to the camp through the Washing Machine rapid.

17th July We headed off with Irish Ryan to the Ula slides bright and early for an introduction to steep creeking course, run by a couple of the guys from Gene 17. After several runs of the slides and a bit of coaching paddled the final slide with mixed results. Tom and Ryan got decent lines, Adam styled the line but landed a little flat and hurt his back and Will powered out of the eddy, full of adrenaline, into the opposite wall span around and ran it backwards, but fortunately was fine. A few rapids later Ryan pencilled a drop, hurt his ankles but shrugged it off (they were later swollen up like balloons and both fractured). We then arrived at the waterfalls. The levels were a healthy medium which were a bit high for the 3rd waterfall so the only place to get out was after the first. After his earlier muppetry Will decided to sit out and as Adam and Ryan were injured Tom was the only one to get the classic Ula falls photo. This was followed up by another cheeky run of the playrun with Paula and co.

18th July We set off to do the Fina with some paddlers from Durham Uni, Adam sat it out as his back was still a bit sore from the Ula the day before. Within the first 100 metres of G3 from the put in Tom decided to take an interesting line and got flipped and pinned upside down resulting in his first OBE (Out of Boat Experience) of the trip. At this point the Durham boaters were now undoubtedly wondering who they had got onto the river with, however the rest of the river passed without incident, except for Will having a worrying amount of downtime on one of the main rapids, also going down the wrong channel on another rapid which lead to some limbo practice under a branch. The Fina turned out to be a great grade 3-4 gorge run and we even had time to drive back up and run the lower Skjerva (a trib of the Fina) which wasn’t quite as nice as the Fina due to it being a bit chossy and bouldery, resulting in a bit of a nasty pin for Will but flushed him fairly quickly.

19th July Since the Sjoa festival was over we packed up and headed for the Ostri which was an awesome G3-4 15 minute blast. After a couple of runs we set up camp.

20th July After a quick drive to the Tundra we spent about 45minutes trying to do a 3 point turn on top of a particularly annoyingly placed rock. Once the car was finally pointing in the right direction we set off to find the take out. We couldn’t find the takeout... (apparrantly above some unrunnable waterfalls in a gorge) so we thought that we would just put on, hope for the best and find it from the river. After an awesome slide into a 3m drop there was a rapid with a bit of a sticky hole causing Adam to have a swim. Once reunited with his kit, we set off again but being somewhat worried about the takeout found a slightly less vertical piece of gorge and began the epic walk/climb out. We then drove to the Tora Bora; an 800m section of big drops and slides. After checking out the lines we were pretty excited to run it the next day. After drizzling all day it now really started rain but we still managed to get a fire going.

21st July It rained solidly all night so there wasn’t even any point in going to look at the Tora Bora as it would be far too high and scary, so instead we headed off to Valldal. After almost getting on to the wrong and very expensive ferry, we arrived that evening and to our disappointment it was still raining. After a long search for dry wood and several attempts to light one with sodden wood, Tom remarked that what we needed was a cave inexplicably filled with dry wood, in one final foray into the undergrowth before giving up we did in fact find a small cave inexplicably filled with dry wood.

22nd July Still raining. Went to run a high Upper Valdolla and disaster struck, at the end of one of the slides Adam went to brace and dislocated his shoulder, after a quick lesson in relocating shoulders Tom pulled Adams shoulder back in. Adam then headed back to the car. Will and Tom carried on for a bit before realising they had lost a throwline and sling respectively. After a fruitless search we carried on until reaching a continuous must run gorge section of about 6 drops in rapid succession, at these levels each had a meaty hole and probably needed a fair bit of safety on it so we decided to stow our kit and walk back to the car (this section is all roadside). As it was still raining we headed to a café above a waterfall (and gorge of probable death) to dry out for a few hours.

23rd July After another night of rain we woke up to find glorious clear blue skies! After laying kit and clothes out to dry Will and Tom put in to the middle Valdolla by the campsite which still had enough water in it and plenty of nice slides. The guidebook said that a giant boulder in the river signalled the takeout and the map pointed to the second bridge as the take out. After paddling past the giant boulder towards the bridge the gradient began to pick up a bit before a blind corner under the bridge. We grabbed the last eddies and hopped out and after a quick inspection found the big drop feeding into an undercut which the guidebook had failed to mention was under the bridge, nice. We then headed over to Rauma over the Troll walls (the place where they did that wingsuit B.A.S.E jumping video) and camped beside the upper section of the Rauma.

24th July Adams shoulder wasn’t feeling too bad so we all got on to the upper Rauma as it was very pool drop so Adam could portage the drops. The levels were nice and everything but the last rapid went. We finally managed to find a big fish in a supermarket to cook, so set about collecting enough wood, this involved wading over to an island and throwing the wood back over/into the river. Later on the Irish and the Durham boaters turned up and we decided that we would all go and have a look at the infamous Lower Rauma the next morning.

25th July The lower section is as pool drop as the upper but just one hell of a lot bigger. After looking at the first slide (15m) and deciding it went most of the group put on. Out of the 7 drops normally run Will ran 1,2, 5 and 7 and Tom and the others ran 1,2,3, 5 and 7 (Tom forgetting to do up his drain bung for the 1st and 5th) . Some time was spent by a few looking at the 4th drop, of which the line was obvious but more than a little bit challenging and required giant kahunas. No one went for it in the end but, at the end of the portage was a 10-15m cliff, with a huge pool. So it was throw in your boat and jump in after for some deep water rescue practice. After some fantasy lines on drop 8: Flemmingfosson Will Tom and the Durham lot headed up to the upper for a quick blast down. The levels were low but paddling without inspecting certainly made it “second run, twice the fun”.

26th July As the levels had dropped a lot since it stopped raining we all headed off to the Ulvaa low water run which provided some serious carnage. We paddled in two groups of four; Will with the Irish and Tom with the Durham lot. Over all, out of the 8 people we had 7 swims including a notable run of the portage by Tom’s, boat which is now a little inverted at one end. On one of the last rapids Seán inspected and told Will to start right and head left. It turned out that the hole was a lot deeper than it looked and after a bit of a surf Will and his kit were spat nicely into the eddy for a self rescue. Will then waited for the others who decided to inspect. We then parted ways and headed on recommendation for the Romfo section of the Driva where we camped and Tom and Will had their presidential hand-over meeting.

27th July Adams shoulder was feeling a lot stronger so we all put on. The Romfo section started off as Himalayan style grade 4 and then mellowed into alpine grade 2-3 and was over far too soon. We then headed into Oppdal to find some internet to pay the automated tolls. Vertical Playground, an awesome paddling and outdoors shop had free internet, Will discovered he had passed his second year so splashed out on some beers. We then drove to the put in to the Lower Jori and camped.

28th July: Too much cow bell! We were woken by incessant bells at about 5 am and looked out of the tent to see a cow shaking a bag, with a kilogram of salt in, with its mouth. Tom attempted to chase them away and was shortly joined by Will. However the cows didn’t seem too bothered really and kept coming back. While Adam was somehow managing to sleep through the constant racket Tom and Will hatched a cunning plan involving chilli powder, however it turns out that it contains salt so the cows tucked in with gusto. 1kg of salt and most of a bottle of chilli powder later the cows left and we put on a rather low and scrapey Lower Jori. Tom and Will then got in a run of the Rosten section of the Lagen which was at a nice level and provided some awesome rapids. Next we headed to Sjoa and camped at the free ‘German’ campsite on the Lagen.

29th July We decided to have a nice relaxed day and just have a run down the playrun through washing machine. After forgetting his helmet Will had to hitch down after Adam but made it in time. We met up with some raft guides and decided to do the Ausengjuvet section of the Sjoa with them the next day.

30th July On the Ausengjuvet all was going well until the crux rapid-the Gut where Will cocked up and collided with Adam. As Adam braced his shoulder popped out again and he swam. After collecting the kit and a bit of faff on how to get Adam across the river to walk out to the road we decided it probably wasn’t a good idea to try and cross. Will and Adam headed off out of the gorge and after a bit of a climb made it to a road while the others paddled the boats out. That evening Will and Tom went for a quick blast down the Amot Gorge section of the Sjoa, with some other raft guides. While Tom hitched up to get Adam and the car Will paddled down the last bit of the Sjoa into the Lagen to the campsite.

31st July We got up and drove to Lillehammer on a mission to find Adam a ‘Onesy’ all in one tracksuit which one of the raft guides had had which was much admired. However the only ones available were women’s and very expensive, so we continued our drive to Oslo and camped just outside the city.

1st August As always trying to do a cultural day on a paddling trip went pretty badly. The plan was to drop the car off at the airport, train into Oslo and see some sights and then go back to the airport in time for our flight. We thought we could not pay the parking in the short stay car park as that was where we had to leave the car. We then got a train into Olso which turned out to be pretty expensive. Once there we realised it was a Sunday and despite Oslo being a capital city, everything was closed. We then spent a couple of hours in the natural history museum, one of the few places open, and had a Mc Donalds = culture fail. On arriving back at the airport we found out that there was a gate between us and the car hire drop of and so had to pay an extortionate amount for the parking. After failing to blag the boats on the plane for free we nearly ran out of time but all got on safe and sound in the end and were soon back in Blighty.

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Adams Facebook Pictures: http://www.facebook.com/#!/album.php?aid=2218174&id=202905498